I didn't know if there was a better sub-forum to put this in. But I have a question regarding the Japanese R sound. I know you put your tongue kind of in between the la and da tongue positioning along the ridge in your mouth. Once your tongue is in that location do you try to make an r sound and then it comes out a mix of r,l, and d? Or is there another sound I should be trying to make?

When in doubt it's better to go closer to the L sound than the D sound; A friend of mine who was never able to get the pronunciation down always pronounces it as a D which can actually transform the word you wanted to say into a completely different, but very real word. There is no such problem if you accidentally lean too far towards the L, it just sounds bad.

I've always held by a rule of forming my mouth like an 'L' (including tongue to the roof of the mouth), while thinking 'R' and pronouncing that from the throat. It's a slightly strange concept, but it seems to get the right balance, or at least people on chat complement my clear pronunciation, but that may just be a Japanese-polite way of saying I speak slowly. But at least I don't seem to be misunderstood.

I think the 'd' component of the sound is best forgotten and avoided as there is a much more d-like sound in Japanese, namely most of the voiced た line, that is だ・で・ど. There is a similarity between a 'd' and ら line, but I would avoid producing it. It can be helpful to be aware of the similarity for -listening- though so that you can tune your ear to distinguish between だ and ら. I had the worst trouble with that early on because I didn't think 'd' and 'r' sounded anything alike until I realized I was mishearing ら as だ (though seldom vice-versa, for what that's worth).